The beneficial effects of jogging are now well established. It is now widely recognized that jogging for a sufficient distance at a sufficient speed produces a measurable improvement in the efficiency of the cardiorespiratory organs of the human body as well as improving the tone of muscles in the ankles, legs, hips, and abdomen. The value of this conditioning carries over to enhance performance in numerous other recreational activities such as tennis, soccer, and skiing. In addition, the caloric expenditure involved can, when coupled with proper diet, provide an important supplementary means of weight control.
Unfortunately, in the northern climates, jogging is necessarily a seasonal activity confined to the warmer seasons of the year. Many weeks are spent each spring reachieving, with some physical strain and risk to health, the muscle tone and level of endurance lost during the winter.
Indoor running-in-place is one recognized alternative to outdoor jogging in maintaining cardiorespiratory endurance, but it does not exercise all of the muscles required either for outdoor jogging or for related recreational activities involving running. The essence of outdoor jogging is a propulsion forward, and no such effort can be utilized in stationary running. Since the tolerable duration of exercise is limited by the weakest muscle group, even the stationary runner finds himself faced with the necessity of retoning a number of weak muscles, ligaments, and cartilages at the beginning of warm weather.
Treadmills are one possible solution to this problem. Unfortunately, they are expensive and beyond the means of most people. Moreover, even in an institutional setting they are of little use to many because each treadmill can be used by only one or two people at a time.
Accordingly, there is a substantial need for a simple, inexpensive exercise device for aiding a person to exercise, indoors, those muscles used in outdoor jogging and running.